“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.” - John Cage

Teaching Pedagogy -- I have been teaching classes and workshops in the arts for about fifteen years.  My undergraduate studies were mostly in art therapy and the healing arts ...accessibilty....how to educate artists more effectively to become vital participants in interdisciplinary collaboration...

Sound and Ecology, Arts and Engineering, Contact Mic BuildingSound and Ecology - The Sound and Ecology course has listening as a central concern. In an overwhelmingly visual culture, the role of listening in everyday life has been relegated to a very minor role. Our tendency in such a noisy culture is to block out environmental sound. Listening is often confined to earbuds on an ipod. The overall trajectory of the course will explore listening (via listening exercises, soundwalks, and environmental sound recordings) beginning from a general perspective and gradually “zooming in” to particular sounds within the environment. Students will be taught the basic science of sound/listening/hearing, how to use digital recorders and microphones properly out in 'the field', how to keep listening journals, and how to transfer and edit recordings into a computer.